Taranto – Francesco Giannico Posted On: November 30, 2011
Photos Francesco Giannicoi
Francesco Giannico is an Italian electroacoustic musician, videoartist and webdesigner. He lives in Rome but is originally from Taranto. His musical approach is better described as a cinematic journey, which pushes the boundaries of digital media even further by incorporating smooth melodies and gentle textures. At the end of 2010 he formed together with Alessio Ballerini the network “Archivio Italiano dei Paesaggio Sonori” to promote the ecology of sound and soundscape culture. Talking to Alessio Ballerini spurred my interest in the work of the Italian Archive of Sonic Landscapes, AIPS, which, while still in its infancy has ambitious plans to map the whole of the Italian peninsula collecting found sounds and producing sound postcards. The first chapter of the Italian soundbook, SonorApuliae is set in Taranto, the industrial hub of Puglia (Apulia), where Francesco Giannico conducted a workshop in the old town… Q: Could you tell me how this came about and why you chose an area, which has been in constant decline for a number of years now? A: The aim of the sound workshop in Taranto was twofold. I wanted to conjugate the sound research work done by AIPS with the valorization of a deprived territory, that of the old town of Taranto. Notwithstanding its social and housing problems it remains a truly fascinating area, thanks in no small part to its particular geographical configuration. Old Taranto is in fact an island connected to the “new” part of town by a revolving bridge. Q: Judging by Alessio’s account of your joint experience with a similar workshop in Rome, your experience in Taranto has been markedly different in terms of sponsorship. What were the main factors for such a different outcome? A: It is true that Alessio and I had a rather dispiriting experience when we mapped the Pigneto district in Rome last Spring. We knocked on quite a few doors, amongst them that of the Discoteca di Stato – the official Italian sound archive -, and of various museums
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and institutions, only to be met with little interest and a degree of superficiality, even though everybody was praising the concept of our work. Luckily we found a Circolo Arci, which offered us logistical support in terms of a venue. The situation as regards to TARANTO SONORA | SONORAPULIAE 2010, was radically different. There is very little happening in terms of cultural activities in Taranto, which, ironically, played in my favor as I had very few people to compete with for the little resources that were available. Also, I was playing at home, so to speak, as I am originally from the Puglia region and I knew the territory fairly well and knew how to go about things. In terms of the workshop itself, Taranto Sonora was structured as a weeklong series of talks on “soundscaping” and “improvisational methods” inspired by the works of Murray Schafer and John Cage. These were followed by a number of sound-walks whereby all the participants followed pre-designated itineraries within the old town with a digital recorder in hand to collect sounds. Step by step we covered the whole area.
any specific “endangered” sounds that old people talked about that you tried to capture? And what was the reaction you got from people?
Q: Did anyone amongst your group come from the area? Also, were there
Q: It is impossible to talk about Taranto and not mention the Ilva plant. The
A: The general reaction was good even though we may have come across as aliens to most! None of the participants came from Old Taranto itself, but some of the locals invited us into their homes to “better record” and capture sounds from unusual angles. We didn’t seek any specific sound indications from the people we met, though. We stuck to our itineraries trying to cover as much ground as possible, with a documentarian intent. Alas, what we have uploaded onto the online map is just a sample of all the sounds we collected. The majority of samples are urban sounds that resonate within confined spaces, with the echo of people shouting bouncing off the labyrinth of narrow allies that make up the old town of Taranto. In the background is the sometimes faint but ever present humming of the Ilva plant, which can get drowned out by the sounds of the bustling city by day, but is still very much noticeable.